Letting the Music Quiet Our Noise

        The other night, Seneca fell asleep listening to Palestrina’s “Motets for Five Voices.”  This piece is part of this term’s Composer Study and was the selection for the week.  I don’t think Seneca fell asleep because she was bored with it.  We often have this perception of people falling asleep at concerts (read: classical music concert) because they are bored.  That may be the case in some instances. But I wonder if sometimes the people who do fall asleep at concerts or fall asleep to classical music at night do so because they are put into a meditative state almost a trance.  When I was listening to Motets for Five Voices along with Seneca and I closed my eyes, it was as if the music had entered and surrounded my brain.  All of the other white noise in my brain seemed to stop.  This particular piece of music has so much going on as alluded to by its title “Five Voices.”              

          On the night she fell asleep listening, I had actually offered to turn off the music after the first break at the eight minute and thirty second mark.  I had actually started to turn it off and she simply said, “More.”   When I first played the piece for her, she was not as enthusiastic.  She listened for about 5 – 8 minutes each day as we made our way through the piece for the week.  Slowly, it began to resonate with her.  I guess that is the truth with so many things.  Sometimes we need repeated exposure, but gentle repetition.  My new “problem” is that she now likes “Motets for Five Voices” so much that Palestrina’s other works can’t compare and she only wants to listen to “Five Voices” during Composer Study.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQo_LirQY-k&t=828s

Dancing, Math, and More

Ballet:  1 hour and 45 minutes of ballet class
Jazz: 45 minutes of jazz dance class
History: S continued to read Benjamin Franklin.
Art Study: For this week's art work, S was shown a picture of a bust of Col. Robert Shaw by Edmonia Lewis.

Composer Study: I decided to choose our composer from Wildwood Curriculum's wildwoodcurriculum.org rotation for this year.  The first term composer for 2017-2018 is Giovanni de Palestrina.  Their listing for the first piece of Palestrina's work to be listened to is Motets For Five Voices.  Seneca and I listened for the first 8 minutes and 30 seconds of the piece.  We plan to listen to more throughout the week.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQo_LirQY-k&t=508s
Poetry/Copywork: S decided on her own that she wanted to copy the poem "Trees" into her new notebook.  She copied half of it and will copy the rest hopefully tomorrow.
Math: Addition drill as we were riding in the car.  She wrote out her 2x tables in her new notebook.
Science: S continued to read from her Usborne book Sharks.  The reading was followed by an oral narration.

Narrations: I have S narrate back to me what she does in her dance classes.  She discusses floor exercises, barre work (Big Sis: "You went to the bar! S, that's illegal!), and stretches.  Narration doesn't only have to be about a reading that was done.  It's an exercise to help build memory and communication skills.
        S was so excited! She finally got to show everyone her illusion.  She has been working on learning this move all summer and she has got it down. She got to show each of her three teachers individually.  They all said what a great job she did.  She learned to do it by watching a tutorial on youtube, and she has the flexibility from intense dance training to be able to learn the move.
        You may have noticed that S's math assignment is below what is typically done in fifth grade math.  We used the approach of delayed formal mathematics.  That doesn't mean that she hasn't been doing math.  She did use a math curriculum for first grade, but not after that.  Instead, we played math games, read books about math, and taught math concepts as fun sporadic lessons.  I decided to approach math this way after reading this article https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-school about a community in 1929 that removed math from its elementary school curriculum until sixth grade.  Now, I think it is very important that we acknowledge that kids at that time were more likely to be exposed to more real-world math through things like knitting (patterns, patterns in multiples of 3s or 4s), woodworking, farming, cooking with scales for measurements, etc.  S has learned math concepts and she has done work on long addition and subtraction with borrowing and carrying, but this is her first year to really approach memorizing her math facts.  She actually has a lot already memorized just from doing gentle math over the past few years.

First Day of Fifth Grade!

  Fifth grade homeschooling year has officially begun!

  For history, S read from Benjamin Franklin by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire.  I had some hesitation about her reading it because although it is not from a religious book publisher, it is clearly a Christian book.  Our homeschool is secular, but I don't want to exclude religion or there's also the argument for having religious (Judeo-Christian) knowledge as part of cultural competency.  The books itself was written in 1950 at a time when it was taken for granted that everyone in America was a Christian.  That, in and of itself, is a great teaching point.  For now, our approach is to be aware that this book was written by Christians for Christians and we will discuss those implications as they arise.  For example, S read about the Franklin family saying grace before a meal. That made no sense to her at all.  I had to explain that to say grace means to say a prayer.  She asked if using the word grace like this was an old-fashioned expression. I said it wasn't so much that it's old fashioned, but since we're not Christians we don't ever use this expression.    One old fashioned expression in the book that had her completely thrown was "knee high to a grasshopper."    "Huh?! What?! Okay, this book makes no sense."
        For science, I pulled a book off of one of our bookshelves that had been bought a little while back, but not used as much as I would have liked. It's a reference book on sharks from the Usborne publishing company.  It is definitely not a living book or a book that would meet Charlotte Mason criteria, but it's in our house, so we are using it.  It's a good book and very informative.  I just don't think it would be considered a Charlotte Mason book.  I think if we were to use it along with a book, such as a biography of shark scientist Eugenia Clark then it would lend itself to being more of a Charlotte Mason resource. For now, our book on Sharks will do for science reading.
     Our artist this term is Edmonia Lewis.

Seneca listened to the first ten minutes of lecture on Edmonia Lewis.  In the lecture, it says that her date of death is unknown. However, I looked up Lewis on her Wikipedia page and it gave a specific date of death. At this time, I don't know why there is such a discrepancy.  Here is link to the lecture that we are watching.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e74ImAzS38  We will continue watching the rest of the lecture next week.
     Ballet is back!   Ballet is three days a week for two hours per day.  She will also have jazz class one day a week, pointe class, and Russian character dance class.  This means four pairs of dance shoes! We have two - ballet and pointe.  In fact, we had to stop at Payless (which has amazing deals on ladies shoes at the moment) and buy a new pair of ballet shoes.
    Our poet this term is Joyce Kilmer. His poem "Trees" is Seneca's favorite poem.  I read aloud some general information about Kilmer.  He was killed in World War I. I told Seneca that this was the war in the movie "Wonder Woman." Her response, "Wait. That was World War I?  That couldn't be because in the movie Steve said that that was the war to end all wars, but then there was World War II."    I couldn't believe that she had remembered that line.  We had a discussion about how there really was a saying that World War I was to be the war that would end all wars.    
    As to the poem itself, S read it aloud five times and almost has it memorized.  We'll aim for a daily reading of the poem.  She is the one who wanted to keep reading it over and over again.  I only asked for two readings.
  I'm going to jump in here and mention our use of technology in our lessons.  On the one hand, I don't want us to become dependent on screens for learning, but they can be a huge money-saver.  We will look at pictures of Lewis's sculptures and access Kilmer's poems online.  We also are listening to the lecture on Edmonia Lewis because it has been posted online.  Free online material is also a time-saver.
   We really should have done some math, but we were too exhausted.  Not only is ballet a two hour class, but it's a forty-five minute drive from our house when the traffic is good.

High School Literature Option B

Books: 

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, 

Deathless by Catherynne Valente, 

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, 

The Lady in The Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir, 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Poems:

1.  “Helen of Troy Dances on Counter-tops” by Margaret Atwood; 
2. “Quattrocento” by Margaret Atwood; 
3. “The Queen” by Pablo Neruda; 
4. “Inheritance” by Warsan Shire; 
5. “The Mermaid” by William Butler Yeats; 
6. “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae 
7. “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe 
8. “The Faded Flower” by Samuel Coleridge; 
9. “Life” by Samuel Coleridge 
10. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost; 
11. “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost; 
12. “Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost; 
13. “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost; 
14. “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath; 
15. “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath; 
16. “Cinderella” by Sylvia Plath; 
17. “The Rival” by Sylvia Plath; 
18. “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson; 
19. “There is another sky” by Emily Dickinson; 
20. “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” by Emily Dickinson; 
21. “Nobody knows this little Rose” by Emily Dickinson; 
22. “A Slash of Blue” by Emily Dickinson

High School Literature Option A

High School Literature

The Martian by Andy Weir

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Poetry of Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson

Short Stories: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “Daphne and Apollo” retold by Olivia Coolidge, “Daedalus” retold by Olivia Coolidge, “The Great Flood (in Greek Mythology) retold by Olivia Coolidge, “The Coming of Evil” (aka Pandora’s Box) retold by Olivia Coolidge and “Baucus and Philomen” retold by Olivia Coolidge

Theater Studies (High School)

Theater Studies (High School)

As The Evil Queen, yes this was her costume

 

Yasmeen took three years of acting classes at (name withheld for privacy) in (city withheld for privacy), FL. Yasmeen performed  twice-a-year in their showcases. Yasmeen's performances include Artemis (Greek Mythology), The Evil Queen (Snow White). In the class Yasmeen learned character development and scene analysis.  Yasmeen also did independent studies including  reading Othello by William Shakespeare, Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, and A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde. 

One Year Curriculum Giveaway Contest from Oak Meadow

Oak Meadow is holding  a contest with a chance to win one full year's worth of curriculum!!!!!
  Click on the link for more details.  
http://www.secularhomeschool.com/content/1660-august-2017-giveaway-oak-meadow/

Trying to pin down that CM Schedule.....or not?

            Before going to work today, I sat down at my computer to try to come up with a basic schedule for fifth grade.  S has been homeschooling since first grade, but we’ve never used a schedule.  She reads, does her cursive, she may have a grammar lesson or math lesson, but it can happen on any given day and any given time.   We have been able to accomplish most of what is in a Charlotte Mason curriculum each year without ever having a set schedule.  That isn’t to say that we never have set obligations – she did ballet and computer classes, so we worked within that frame.

I had been giving a lot of serious consideration to really embracing the whole philosophy and methods of a CM education.  The foundation really is the schedule itself.  But after I wrote out a chart based on one that I found at Simply Charlotte Mason https://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/curriculum-guide/, I felt agitated and overwhelmed.  I say that the schedule itself is the foundation of a CM education because of the long list of readings.  Lessons are short, but there a lot of lessons.  I worry about jumping from book to book as - ideally - we would be having quite a few books going at the same time.  On the one hand, the argument is made that a child who learns this way learns to really focus on the readings and learns to compartmentalize and separate the information as needed – so that, for example, an incident in the life of Ben Franklin wouldn’t be confused with an incident in the life of Isaac Newton. On the other hand, it does seem to be a bit much and even a bit choppy.  Some readings are only done once a week.  Can a child really retain much detail from only a weekly reading?   A piece of me does want to give this a go to see if it could work and to see if my fears are unfounded. 

Our CM homeschool has always been a very relaxed one.  As I’ve said, we have no set schedule or rhythm.  And this way has worked beautifully for all of us.  But being too comfortable can sometimes mean a lack of progress.  We progress because we challenge ourselves.   

I am thinking of rotating out books instead of having too many going at once.  For example, a day might look something like this for a couple of weeks:

Daily

Plutarch (Copywork)

Dictation

Math

Grammar

Latin  

Art/Poet/Music

Handicraft

Next rotation might be:

Daily

Ben Franklin by D’Aulaire’s (Copywork)

Dictation

Math

Grammar

Latin  

Art/Poet/Music

Handicraft

    I think this way would lead to less burn-out, but again I don’t want to do a disservice to my daughter by not teaching her how to handle multiple readings. 

A more traditional CM approach would look more like the following which I created based on the schedule suggested by Simply Charlotte Mason:

Monday               Tuesday           Wednesday   Thursday   Friday

Ben Franklin          Ben Franklin      Poetry             Plutarch        Plutarch

Artist Study            Music Study     Geography       Folk Song     Nature Study

Latin                         Habits?             Handicraft        Shakes          Habits

My Side OTM         My Side             My Side            Latin              My Side

Math                       Math                   Math                My Side         Math

Isaac Newton         IN                        IN                      Math             IN

Grammar                GMR                   GMR                 IN                   GMR

   What would you choose?

      

Homeschool to College: The Common App and Respect For Our Youth

             When my daughter was applying for college through the Common App, she ran into a little snag.  On the Common App, it is required that a student submit at least two letters of recommendation.   I forget the exact details, but basically the person writing the recommendation receives an email inviting them to upload their letter of recommendation to the student’s application.  For some reason, Y’s internship supervisor from Ringling Museum wasn’t able to upload to the Common App.  Y wrote to the colleges and explained the problem.  Each one of the colleges agreed that the supervisor could personally email the admissions counselor and attach the letter of recommendation, and they would accept it.  Problem solved, we thought.

                Well, the Common App itself wouldn’t let Y proceed until two letters of recommendation were uploaded.  So, Y emailed the assistance line at Common App and explained the problem and what had been done to remedy the situation.  We were both expecting an email saying something to the effect that they (Common App staff) have turned off that requirement and she may now proceed.  Instead, she received a nasty email telling her to follow the rules. 

                Y was very tempted, as was I, to write an email back to this person. However, Y didn’t want this person to then go in and mess with her application in some way, so she never pursued that one.

                What we did end up doing was having me create a new email account and in place of the letter of recommendation, I uploaded a letter explaining that, as the schools are aware, her internship supervisor could not upload her letter to Common App, and I’m only doing this to unlock the Common App so that Y could finish the application process.    And that worked. 

                Y had a valid problem with the Common App, but instead of really reading what she wrote, the staff member at Common App just assumed that Y didn’t want to follow the rules.  I think that this does speak in many ways as to what we are all up against for those of us who embrace respectful parenting.  In this woman’s mind, the system as it is set up is perfect.  And she clearly felt that she had every right to talk down to my daughter because my daughter was only 17 at that time.    Granted, it was an email, but the wording was very nasty and shocking to us. 

              This nastiness from adults seems to be everywhere.   From school officials (not pertaining to us but I saw it in terms of another kid), to sheriff’s deputies to mental health counselors who are nasty and talk down to their young clients. I’ve got a whole story on that one.  It terrifies me that to them it’s normal to talk down to a young person and to not speak with respect or courtesy.  Unfortunately, the kids who are not being raised in respectful parenting environments will probably grow up to act the same way.